"Saturday Night Live" kicked off its 51st season this weekend. Here are three takeaways:

The cold open was way too cautious

You don't get to a 51st season by throwing bombs, and Saturday offered none. The most viewed part of any "SNL" — the cold open — offered exactly what most cold opens offer (a riff off the news), without once (in this case anyway) pivoting to either a surprise or an outrage. It was an open that effectively wrote itself, for an audience that has come to expect nothing more, or less. Colin Jost as "Secretary of War" Pete Hegseth , with gay jokes, followed by James Austin Johnson as the POTUS who spoke truth to the head writer: "So sad to see something get old and confused and still demand your constant attention." A real surprise, perhaps, would have been an imprompt

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